Watford vs Swansea Preview: Will Swans pile more misery on Watford?

The Carabao Cup gives teams a chance to chase silverware, but in some instances – sides would rather make changes to their 11 and focus on the league. Even at this early stage, this might be the narrative for both of these clubs on Tuesday night.

Watford have endured a torrid start to the season and the misery was piled on at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday afternoon when Pep Guardiola’s men smashed eight goals past Ben Foster. The goalkeeper was hardly to blame for the beating, a combination of fantastic Manchester City attacking play and poor Watford defending meant one of the biggest wins in Premier League history.

Now, manager Quique Sanchez Flores has to pick his deflated side up for a tricky Carabao Cup tie against high flying Championship side Swansea City at Vicarage Road.

Watford vs Swansea Preview – 24/09/19: Carabao Cup

Swansea City have made a great start to the Championship season as they look to get back into the Premier League, and it remains to be seen whether this is seen as a distraction or a chance to test themselves against more Premier League opposition by Swansea manager Steve Cooper.

Watford have already negotiated themselves past Coventry in this competition – a 3-0 result that has been their only win of the season so far. Their then manager Javi Gracia made some chanes to his starting line-up that night and it paid off, with Ismaila Saar getting on the scoresheet. The likes of Andre Grey and Gerard Deulofeu were rested that night. Troy Deeney is injured for Watford and that has been a big blow to them, so Deulofeu has been deployed as a central striker. He was taken off after 77 minutes on Saturday, to be replaced by Gray, who could start against Swansea.

Will Swansea take the Premier League scalp of Watford?

This will be one of the matches that punters have an eye on this weekend, expecting a Premier League scalp to be taken. Both sides have had contrasting starts to the season, with Watford being surprisingly poor after a solid campaign last season. Swansea finished in 10th place in the Championship table last season but have started really well this campaign. They are currently joint top with Leeds, but have failed to win in their last two matches now – drawing 0-0 with Bristol City at the weekend, and prior to that they lost 1-0 at Nottingham Forest, who play Arsenal tonight.

So can Swansea beat Watford? Based on the form of both teams, they certainly can and if Steve Cooper plays a strong team then it would be hard to put you off backing the South Wales outfit at odds of 9/3 with Ladbrokes. However, in the last round Cooper made changes to his starting 11 and with Watford needing a win to boost confidence, the home side should just scrape though in this one.

Watford vs Swansea Prediction – Watford win and under 2.5 goals

Swansea’s matches have not been high scoring in the last few weeks and this is a trend I expect to continue in this Carabao Cup match up. Their last three games have finished 1-0, 0-0 and 1-0 and despite them putting six past Cambridge United in the last round, it is hard to see a similar match when they travel to Vicarage Road on Tuesday night.

Watford’s matches have been more high scoring, an 8-0 defeat and 2-2 draw with Arsenal hardly scream under 2.5 goals for this game – but they were results against far superioir opposition to Swansea and I have the feeling that manager Quique Sanchez Flores will just want to get a win on the board here – and not concede goals.

The odds for Watford to beat Swansea and under 2.5 goals to be scored in the match are 17/5 with Coral.

Watford vs Swansea City Score Prediction

Watford to win 1-0 – 7/1 with Ladbrokes.

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